England win All Three Doubles Titles at First European Championships

27 February, 2018

England can be proud of her representatives in the first European Championships which took place at Bochum in West Germany from April 19th to 21st. Not only did English pairs win all the three doubles events, but in all three cases the runners-up were also English pairs.

The full effect of these notable successes as that no English pair was defeated by any but another English pair. One can sympathise with the spectators that all this internecine warfare rather spoiled their enjoyment by taking away all sense of international rivalry in the finals. The feat as indeed all the more remarkable because the conditions of the tournament entitled each country to enter only two players or pairs in each event.

We did not do so well in the singles, not nearly so well. England had only one semifinalist. This was Miss Bairstow, who was incidentally unseeded probably because of her "bad" loss in the All-England Championships to Miss Geene of the Netherlands. As it happened she obtained her revenge against the Dutch girl whom she easily vanquished this time. But Germany's Miss Latz proved on the day rather too good for our representative.

Preferred to Miss Perrin as the second string, Miss Boxall went out to Denmark's Mrs. Sorensen who has consistently this season proved a thorn in British flesh, but was certainly no cake-walk.

In the men's singles England had entered R.J. Mills and J.D. Eddy, the latter having been really chosen to travel owing to his doubles skill. Mills started off very poorly, and allowed himself to be drawn into a sort of smash-and-grab hitting spree with his first opponent from Czechoslovakia, which is a relatively new country for Badminton. At one stage Mills was only on equal terms halfway through the third game. Thereafter, he found himself comfortably disposed of the Austrian champion, and then gave the Danish Thomas Cup player, Elo Hansen, an extremely close match in the third round. It was a match which was really even closer than the score tends to indicate.

Eddy, after taking three games to beat a Dutch player, went out quickly to the elder of the two Johnsson brothers of Sweden. The men's singles champion proved to be the younger Johnsson who was indeed one of the top seeds. He had a very close match with Hansen, and then was very much the safer player when he met Ger­many's Wolfgang Bochow in the final. This was, however, a fine match but the German made too many mistakes to give himself a real chance of success. But he had previously disposed of some distinguished scalps in Kurt Johnsson and J. Mortensen of Denmark. In the former encounter the Swede virtually threw the third game.

The ladies'singles had, very surprisingly, an all-German final. Miss Latz was always a candidate of course, but nobody could have expected Miss Wackerow to emerge from a half containing Mrs. Twedberg, so recently crowned at Wembley. The Swede had her chances of survival here, but after just losing the second game after setting she quite collapsed in the third. Probably the heat proved too much, even after the five-minute interval, for she went down without winning a single point. The final was close., but the senior German never really looked like losing to her younger rival of the Rhine.

Powell's Outstanding Play

In the men's doubles the undoubted hero of the event was Robert Powell, the young Cheshire left-hander. He appears to improve with every court appearance. His play in the rallies is superb and his knowledge.of the game remarkable in one so young. With his excellent temperament, he should soon be quite a world class player. Eddy, his partner, was always prone to error, as is invariably the case with a player of brilliant strokes, but Powell kept the pair well together throughout all of their hard fought struggles.

The English winners were perhaps a little helped on their way to success.The dangerous German pair of Bochow and Wulff was removed by the Scots, R.S. McCoig and M. Henderson, in a match in which the Germans were but a shadow of what they could have been, had they had confidence of a year earlier. And in the final, Jordan who had already won the mixed, was badly off form in the third and seemingly very tired in the heat which prevailed at the time.It was indeed astonishing to see this great serve three successive faults, for instance.

Nevertheless, one must remember in recording the finals of the doubles events the English team very naturally suffered a slight mental let-down. They had already done their duty superbly in disposing of all the foreign element the day before, and they were no longer battlingfr their country.

Miss Boxall and Mrs. Whetnall, the latter name having successfully concealed that of the better known Miss Pound to the extent that they were not honoured by a seeded spot, were always the favourites for success. They lost no game in the event, and the only one conceded by Miss Bairstow and Miss Perrin was their first one well-known Irish pair of Mrs. Bryan and Miss Kelly.

Both of England's pairs were stretched in the mixed, though only in the semifinals. Jordan and Mrs. Whetnall had a very long struggle before overcoming the leading German pair, and Mills and Miss Perrin appeared to let up against the top-seeded Danes after a very easy first-game win. The final was a very friendly affair - on the orders of the England captain, Jordan, who had stressed to Mills not to forget that they were partners in the ensuing final!

Twelve nations in all contested the tournament, which in the overall sense was excellently managed. There would have been more countries represented - and one must remember that participation was restricted to European nations - but two national organisations submitted their entries after the closing date.

It was unfortunate that in this first European Championship tournament not every country was represented by its strongest talent. Denmark, as an instance, was without Erland Kops, Svend Andersen and Per Walsoe, who had all just gone to play in Malaysia. Henning Borch and Mrs. Strand were also absent from the Scandinavian delegation. The Dutch too did not seem to have all their best players, one notable absentee being the brilliant Herman Leidelmeyer who is so improved.

The hall was magnificent and very large, and there must have been about 600 spectators at the finals despite the counter­ attractions of an important football match a few yards away. The court surface was of a composition kind which appeared to play well, and at the finals there was also a first-class electric score board which even went so far as to indicate "first server" or "second server" and other niceties with regard to setting.

All the finalists were presented with huge silver gilt and silver medals in recognition of their success, and the winners also received further handsome prizes donated specially for the events.

On the Saturday evening all the competitors and others were the guests of the West German B.A. at a most convivial dinner and dance, which in true Continental style appeared to have no curfew, except that imposed upon themselves by the finalists who still had to do battle on the morrow.

Subsequent holders of these championships have much to live up to to equal the German organisation and hospitality.